@article {Cuomojech-2020-215148, author = {Raphael E Cuomo}, title = {Shift in racial communities impacted by COVID-19 in California}, elocation-id = {jech-2020-215148}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.1136/jech-2020-215148}, publisher = {BMJ Publishing Group Ltd}, abstract = {Introduction Since the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in California, the geospatial distribution of disease cases has fluctuated over time. Given documented racial disparities in other parts of the country, longitudinal convergence of COVID-19 rates around race groups warrants assessment.Methods County-level cases for COVID-19 were collected from the Johns Hopkins University, and racial distributions were collected from the American Community Survey. Pearson{\textquoteright}s correlation coefficients were computed for each day since COVID-19 was first reported in California, and the longitudinal distribution of each race-specific set of correlation coefficients was assessed for stationarity, linear trend and exponential trend.Results Earlier in the outbreak, the distribution of COVID-19 was most highly correlated with Asian American communities; after approximately 100~days, the distribution of COVID-19 most closely resembled that of African American communities. For every day in this dataset, the county-level distribution of COVID-19 was negatively correlated with the distribution of White American communities in California.Discussion The geospatial distribution of COVID-19 in California has increasingly resembled that of African American communities within the state. Further study should be conducted to characterise potentially disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic across race groups.}, issn = {0143-005X}, URL = {https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2020/10/15/jech-2020-215148}, eprint = {https://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2020/10/15/jech-2020-215148.full.pdf}, journal = {Journal of Epidemiology \& Community Health} }